The Multilateral Approach In Junkyard Wooing Theory
by JemmiVoice
Summary: Or the unexpected benefits of wreaking havoc in the junkyard and relocating to a mostly abandoned theatre, which is currently undergoing repairs by a reclusive cat. Whichever way, Tugger's intrigued (and a bit lost for words) and Asparagus is amused (and perhaps a little taken with the resident flirt).


Disclaimer: CATS belongs to Andrew Lloyd Webber, the RUG and TS Eliot.

Note: Some brief swearing in this chapter.

* * *

_Some cats crave attention. They seek the limelight, whether it involves being stared at adoringly or delivered a long and highly exasperated lecture. They thrive on being noticed, and always seek company – for why spend time alone when it could be spent talking someone's ear off instead?_

_Some cats are rarely around. Even when they are around, no one quite notices their presence until they make themselves nearly as noticeable as the attention-seekers. They may simply be reclusive by nature, or they may have another purpose – to hide from stares and whispers that could judge them in the harshest way._

_Two of these individuals happened to find each other, once. It was a rather odd attraction, but then it was between two cats both rather odd in their own ways. One a bright-minded recluse, with dark deeds in his past; the other an attention seeker, who had seen death and felt oppressive despair an unfair number of times._

_This story is an exploration of theatre, and quasi-Scottish instruments, and a mane and a belt and a doppelgänger. It's also a very strange love story. In fact, it's so strange that one might even call it curious._

_Funny, that._

* * *

"Look, I know I left you. I… I just didn't have time, you know that. I didn't _need_ you, and I'd have lost you anyway, you know that too. I couldn't keep you with me back then, but it's different now. I… Can you work with me? Please? I just need you to cooperate, is that too much to ask? Please?"

There was silence. Tugger closed his eyes briefly, rubbing his forehead.

"What do you want me to do? I really don't want to force you, cos that's just not nice. I promise, I'll be better this time round, I swear. I just need you to work with me. _Please._"

His pleas were met with yet more silence. This time, he scowled.

"Why do you have to be so difficult?" he demanded. "I haven't done anything to you. I haven't – oh, come on!"

He gave the pile of junk in front of him a forceful shove that belied his slim arms and svelte chest. It shivered, but ultimately remained firm – and the bagpipes he had been trying to cajole out for the past hour remained stubbornly stuck in the middle of the pile.

"Dammit!" he yelled, kicking the pile for good measure. "When are you going to _work_ with me?"

His only answer was an unmoving set of homemade bagpipes and a mildly throbbing foot, neither of which did anything to improve his mood. Sighing, he leant forwards to rest his head against the upper reaches of the pile, gaze travelling down to the pipes of his unusual instrument. It shouldn't be this hard to extract one item from the mess – organised though it was – he called home.

He even had a legitimate reason for wanting to get his pipes out, unlike many of his short-lived musings. Unfortunately, the one cat he had sought out to aid him in his retrieval – once it had become apparent for the first time that the pipes were rather firmly stuck – had refused point blank to help him.

"Those things?" Munkustrap had said in disbelief. "Really?" Tugger had nodded fervently in response, which had caused Munkustrap to let out a very familiar sigh, followed by an equally familiar response. "Tugger, I don't have time right now. Get someone else to help you."

"I don't know where anyone else is!"

"Have you looked?"

"Looking wastes time!"

"So does chasing a lost cause. Stop bothering me, and do something about yourself!"

And so Tugger found himself in his current predicament. His preferred method for getting anyone or anything to cooperate with him was to sweet-talk them – either the cajoling would work in the intended way, or his subject of bothering would acquiesce and help him simply to get him to shut up. Unfortunately, his younger brother was one of the few the tactic did _not_ work on. Neither would Tugger seek out anyone else. Apart from not wanting the help of at least two-thirds of his fellow junkyard inhabitants on principle, he also wasn't sure where most of the other cats were, and like he'd said to Munkustrap, looking would just waste time.

(So did sweet-talking inanimate objects, but he wasn't going to admit that.)

Still staring at his bagpipes, it took several minutes of denial-filled stillness before he blew out his cheeks and pushed himself upright again. Crouching down, he gripped one of the visible pipes, and tensed his muscles. He pulled.

The bagpipes refused to budge.

"You kidding me?" Tugger muttered, redoubling his grip. He pushed himself up a little and shifted his feet back, bending his knees as he tugged. He could feel something giving as he pulled, and he pulled harder in response.

"Come on," he said eagerly. "C'mon, c'mon, c'mon…"

Another tug, and the bagpipes felt looser in their prison. Tugger began pulling in earnest, but his efforts seemed to be in vain; there seemed to be something blocking part of his instrument. His eyes widened as his lips compressed in irritation, and he gave another yank.

He managed to dislodge the bagpipes. However, the resulting force propelled him back such that he also managed to trip over his own feet. He landed heavily, still clutching the pipe as the rest of the instrument crashed down over his legs and a shout sounded out. Wind knocked out of him, he barely took in the rest of the junk pile collapsing and cascading over the path.

Wincing, he pushed himself up and clambered to his feet, picking up his bagpipes as he did so. As two of the pipes and part of the body of the instrument fell to the ground, however, he scowled, letting out several choice profanities.

"Language, Tugger," came an exasperated voice from behind him.

"Shut up," Tugger spat, lifting his bagpipes up to better inspect them. "I don't believe this," he continued to himself, as several tears in the fabric and a crack in one of the pipes became visible. "I don't effing –"

"Language, please?" the voice said again.

"Would you shut _up_, Munkustr – oh," Tugger said, turning around to see not a waspish younger brother, but a grimacing Asparagus, who was sitting on the pathway. "It's you."

"Yes, it's me, which you ought to know considering that you just fell on me and brought half the rubbish in here with you," Asparagus said mildly. "Swearing's good for pain relief, by the way, but only if it's _just_ for pain relief."

"Ah. Mm. Right," Tugger said, shifting his broken pipes into one arm and offering the other down to Asparagus, who took it to pull himself to his feet. "Sorry 'bout that. These were – dammit. Well, can't do much with 'em now."

"Sorry, what?" Asparagus asked, looking bewildered. "What _are_ those?" He indicated the broken bagpipes.

"Just something, it doesn't matter," Tugger said shortly. "They're broken now anyway, don't worry about them."

"Broken how?"

"Doesn't matter how!" Tugger snapped, letting the pipes fall from his arms. They hit the ground with a _crack_, and a look of sheer disbelief arose on his face. "_Shit!_"

"Language!" Asparagus shouted. "That's the _third_ –"

"Why do you _care_?"

"I – what do you mean, _why_ –"

But Asparagus's words were cut off as Tugger, having reached and exceeded his normal supply of patience, turned and upended half the nearest junk pile. The resulting avalanche of rubbish caused its neighbour to topple as well. And the one after that.

A full two minutes had passed by the time the last things had fallen and stopped rolling around, leaving half a dozen previously neat and stable piles of junk in a state of collapse and two toms staring in silence at the mess.

"Well, _shit_," Asparagus said finally.

"Straps is gonna kill me," Tugger moaned faintly, reaching down to pick up his damaged bagpipes. "He's going to kill me, then make me clean this up. And then I think he'll kill me again, oh _Bast_."

Asparagus raised his eyebrows at the chaos littering the ground. "How did you – that shouldn't even be possible," he said, gesturing to where the junk piles had stood two and a half minutes before.

"You haven't heard?" Tugger replied, smiling weakly as he clutched the bagpipes tighter. "I've got a bit of a knack for doing things I shouldn't."

Several seconds passed, and both toms continued to stare at the mess in front of them.

"I can see that," Asparagus said eventually.

"We'd better get out of here," Tugger said a few seconds later, looking up and around himself. "Straps can sense me causing havoc a mile off, and I don't think you'll want to be caught up in it."

"I wasn't the one who caused a landslide of rubbish and collapsed a half dozen junk piles by myself," Asparagus pointed out. He had started walking in the other direction, though, and with a brief glance back at the mess Tugger followed him, still holding the bagpipes.

"Fine, whatever," Tugger replied dismissively. "You know any good hiding places in here? I mean, I know most of 'em myself, but so does everyone, and I _know_ Plato's been dying to get back at me for that thing last week, and –"

"Why don't you come to the theatre with me?"

Tugger stopped, mouth slightly agape. "The _theatre_?"

Asparagus turned to face him and shrugged. "I'd be headed there anyway – and tell you what, I'll take a look at your thing," and here he gestured to the broken bagpipes, "while we're at it. Yes?"

Tugger's head was still buzzing in shock from the events of the past five minutes, and questions were spinning around in his mind faster than he liked. He had half a mind to stop Asparagus in his tracks and get him to explain some things to him. However, any pondering Tugger might have done on the offer or the other cat was out of the question as he heard a raised voice from behind them – Munkustrap's.

"Let's get out of here."

* * *

Half a step behind Asparagus, Tugger found that for the first time in his life he couldn't think of a thing to say. Not for lack of trying, either; he had been mulling over "Cheers for saving my ass from Straps" and "So… you gonna be over at the junkyard again anytime soon?" versus "What up with the swearing thing?" and "What _were_ you doing there anyway?" for the past quarter of an hour, and while they were all perfectly adequate stranger-conversation starters…

Asparagus wasn't really a stranger.

Tugger was thankful that Asparagus couldn't see him attempting and failing to talk – his mouth had opened and shut so many times in the past few minutes that he thought he probably looked a bit mad. He at least was able to hide it by walking behind the other tom – without any forced effort, much to his surprise. He'd never realised how tall Asparagus actually was.

It was only a minute or two later that Asparagus darted into an alleyway on their right, and by the time Tugger caught up to him, he had already opened the shabby looking door on the side of the building. Asparagus gestured Tugger in first, and pulled the door closed behind them both. It swung shut silently, and Tugger's eyes took a few seconds to adjust to the darkness.

Asparagus had bounded ahead of him, and was opening up a small cabinet affixed to the wall. It made several odd clicking sounds, and Tugger heard Asparagus heave an exasperated sigh. Within a minute, several lights had flickered on, and Tugger saw Asparagus half-smiling as he was bathed in yellow light.

"Electricity's pretty old," Asparagus said, gesturing for Tugger to follow him as he walked through a set of musty curtains and onto a black-floored stage. "I can't remember the last time it got fixed up properly, but it's on a generator thing out back, so I'm not complaining." He sat himself down on the stage, and after a moment's hesitation Tugger did the same.

"What's that got to do with anything?" he asked, not adding that he did not know what a generator was.

Asparagus gave him another half-smile. "Means the humans don't have to pay for electricity, I think, and so they're never around. Which is good, because I've replaced half that pulley system already," he said, pointing to something made of metal on the floor near the curtains, "_and_ I've been doing stuff with the lights up there, and I think they'd find that suspicious."

Not sure what to say to that – most of it having gone over his head as he stared around at the stage and the theatre sloping upwards from it – Tugger decided to change the subject.

"So… you said you'd look at my bagpipes?"

"Ah, yes!" Asparagus said, his eyes lighting up. "Let's have them."

Tugger passed the broken pipes over to Asparagus, who then proceeded to examine them very thoroughly over the next ten minutes. Tugger _assumed_ he was doing a thorough examination, at least – it was a bit hard to tell with all the sniffing and little gasps and mutterings he could hear.

At last, Asparagus looked up.

"I've got no idea how these work," he said cheerfully, and Tugger's shoulder's slumped. "I mean, I reckon I can fix them, it looks easy enough, but I don't know if they'll be any good unless you test –"

"You can fix them?" Tugger asked, leaning forwards with rapidly widening eyes. "You can fix them?"

Asparagus looked perplexed. "Well… yes. I can. I think so, anyway –"

But anything else he might have said was lost in Tugger springing up from the ground and tackling him into a hug.

"Thank you, _thank you,_ you're wonderful, you know that –"

"Yes, yes – I can't breathe, Tugger!"

* * *

_Author's note_

In my defence, it's in the video, in 'The Naming of Cats'. There is a moment in there where Tugger drapes himself over Asparagus, and it was too good an opportunity to pass up.

For those of you following _Fantasies_… it's coming. Slowly, but it's coming along. I do apologise for the wait.

Feedback's always appreciated.

~JV


End file.
